The Approval Matrix - Week of August 15

Our deliberately oversimplified guide to who falls where on our taste hierarchies.

Pipeline
Blockbuster-event promoter Ron Delsener has announced Across the Pond, a massive fall concert to take place concurrently in Staten Island and Coney Island; confirmed acts include Beck, the Pixies, Gang of Four, and Oasis. . . . Paul Feig, creator of and writer for the cult TV hit Freaks and Geeks, has signed a deal to write two books for young adults, the first of which will be a sci-fi tale called Ignatius MacFarland, Frequenaut. . . . Oprah Winfrey will bring Toni Morrison’s most recent novel, Paradise—which follows the lives of four women living in a convent—to ABC. Salma Hayek will star. Their Eyes Were Watching God director Darnell Martin will adapt and direct the four-part mini-series. . . . Maggie Gyllenhaal and Maria Bello have signed on for Oliver Stone’s film based on September 11 that will also star Nicolas Cage; the film is set to start production in New York this fall. . . . Also in the works:
a 9/11 documentary based on survivor
stories and narrated by Hilary Swank and Kevin Costner.